1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing systems, and more particularly, to an information processing system capable of controlling integrated circuit (IC) cards at a command level.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, credit cards containing IC chips have become widely used for payment in electronic business transactions performed on the Internet.
In this case, for example, a user can purchase an item in an actual shop or on an Internet shopping site by placing the user's credit card on a reader/writer connected to a personal computer or by accessing the Internet shopping site using a cellular telephone containing an IC chip having a credit card function (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-374570). Payment processing for this purchase is performed in accordance with a response by an IC card to an instruction from a server (for example, a content server) that manages payment information.
Information transferred between the content server and the IC card is private information, such as a purchase amount, balance information registered on the IC card, and the like. Thus, such information must be encrypted. Therefore, the contents of requests to the IC card and information sent from the IC card in accordance with the requests are encrypted.
However, instructions to IC cards have not been set at a command level, such as a read command or a write command. As a result, for example, providers that provide services using IC cards have not been able to increase the efficiency in communication nor the efficiency in server processing.